Thursday, March 29, 2012

From Comics to Toons: X-Men (1992)

Marvel Comics' X-Men will mark their 50th anniversary next year, and of course Marvel will hype it ad nauseum and play it into the ground. Meanwhile, some of today's fans might have gotten their X-initiation from 1992's Fox series, which also aired weekdays.

At first, Marvel produced the show themselves, but by the time it ended its run, X-Men was being distributed and possibly also being co-produced by Saban, which didn't exactly endear themselves to Marvel fans by mishandling the Avengers in a short-lived Fox series. Some of the individual character logos, such as Wolverine's, for example, were already familiar to Marvel readers, since the now-immortal mutant had his own book back then, which has since been relaunched and retooled a couple of times over, largely because the editorial staff doesn't know any better.

Here's the open:

Some of the characters made their television debuts in an episode of Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends back in the 80's, but it's clear that in the decade that followed, the improvements in animation technology created a much better show. Amazingly, Disney, which is Marvel's corporate parent, hasn't seen fit to put the series on either DisneyXD or Disney Channel, much less let another cabler have the rights, but what are they waiting for? You'd think the cartoons would have been on the air last spring in the wake of the "First Class" movie, but who can figure out network executives these days? Sheeesh!!